When everyone arrived back in the lab, they all met in the break room once again. They all looked extremely exhausted, but they needed to get to work. "Griss is still out with Brass talking to possible suspects at city hall," Catherine spoke, addressing the group.
Everyone seemed to be paying attention, so Catherine continued. "Greg, you and Sara keep working on the evidence collected from the scene. Nick, you get to go process Gil's mysteriously empty coffin. Warrick, Dr. Robbins paged me saying that the clothes are ready in the morgue, go pick them up and start processing them. I'm going to go see what Dr. Robbins has to say about our dbs."
After receiving their tasks, the team dispersed.
"So Sara, no coffee tonight?" Greg stated once they got into the trace lab, noting her lack of the beverage in the break room.
"No Greg," Sara replied, "it was making me sick. I'm sticking to water for now."
"You always drink coffee Sara."
"What's your point Greg?"
"You've gotten sick a lot, you haven't eaten a lot, and you're watching what you're drinking? Sounds like you're pregnant to me."
Sara stared into Greg's eyes. "We had this discussion before Greg. I am not, I repeat, I am not pregnant. I am sure."
Greg seemed to back down a little. "Oh, okay, what is bothering you then? You know getting sick all of the time isn't normal."
"Greg, I seem to remember telling you this also. I am extremely stressed out with this case right now, and you constantly pestering me isn't helping anything. Everything is being taken care of, so please, don't ask me about this again."
Greg dropped the subject, and they both started to work on processing the fingerprints from the money envelopes.
After Warrick had dropped in and left with the victims' clothing, Catherine proceeded to start asking Dr. Robbins about what he had found so far. "Both of them were killed in the same manner," Dr. Robbins spoke, "point blank range to the back, straight through the heart, and exit wound between ribs in the chest."
"Do you have a timeline for when he was killed?"
"Well, that's where it gets interesting. When I opened Mr. Ecklie up, his internal organs were still frozen."
"Frozen?" Catherine exclaimed, "How about the sheriff?"
"David reports that he was frozen too. From the conditions described in that basement, they couldn't have been down there more than forty-eight hours."
"There wasn't a freezer big enough to hold a body at the scene, that means they were brought there from somewhere else, but why now?"
"Someone might have noticed they were caught, and they tried to pin the whole thing on your suspect," Dr. Robbins suggested.
"Do you have anything else for me Doc?"
"There weren't any defensive wounds on either victim. I can't see how either one of them would just sit still and allow themselves to be fatally shot. I'm waiting on the blood test results, I want to see if there was anything in their systems."
"Okay," Catherine stated, "let me know if you find anything."
Catherine left the morgue and headed to where they still had their only suspect in custody.
"Sara, I've got partial off of one of these envelopes," Greg stated.
"Does it match anyone we have so far?" Sara inquired.
"Just a sec," Greg ran the print, "nope."
"That's a possible lead, good work Greg."
The two returned to processing more evidence.
Nick had searched the entire coffin, and he had only found a few dark hairs. He bagged them and started to process the outside of the coffin. Nick dusted the lid of the coffin for prints, and was shocked by how many prints were still intact. Well, I guess this is going to take a while. This better be worth it.
Warrick brought the victims' clothing up to an empty lab and started processing the sheriff's clothes. After a thorough inspection of the sheriff's clothes, Warrick only concluded that he had been forced onto his knees at one point, for the lower legs of the pants were the only part that were dirty. However, when Warrick started his inspection of Ecklie's clothes, he found skin cell transfer on the shoulder of the shirt; someone, either the killer or Ecklie, had some flaky skin. On Ecklie's pants, Warrick found the same pattern that he had found on the sheriff's pants; he too had been forced onto his knees. Warrick gathered up the evidence and returned to the trace lab.
"Greg, I've got some soil I need you to run for me, and I've got some skin cells," Warrick spoke, entering the trace lab.
Greg looked up from where he was currently processing fingerprints. "If I go do that, you've got to come in here and help Sara keep processing these fingerprints. You guys collected hundreds at that scene."
"Alright man," Warrick said, moving to come into the room.
"Nah, wait," Greg said, getting up from behind the table, "let me talk to you outside for a sec."
Sara raised an eyebrow at Greg's statement, and watched as the two of them trailed outside of the door. "What's up?" Warrick asked.
"We were wrong," Greg stated.
"About?"
"About Sara being pregnant," Greg practically whispered.
"Man, that was mostly you speculating about everything. You should have just left the girl alone."
Warrick moved to go back into the room, but Greg grabbed his shoulder. "What?" Warrick asked, somewhat annoyed.
"She is sick though. She says the stress is getting to her, and frankly, she just doesn't look right. Griss hasn't been in in a while, so he hasn't seen her. Just keep an eye on her, would ya?"
"We're always watching out for everyone Greg," Warrick stated, "now go process that stuff for me."
Greg nodded and took the evidence from Warrick, heading to the DNA lab.
When Warrick reentered the trace lab, Sara looked up at him. "So what did Greg say that was so important?" Sara asked.
"He was just telling me what you guys had done so far," Warrick lied.
Sara knew right away what they had been talking about. "Right Warrick. Listen, I'm fine, you don't need to worry about me."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I just want to catch the people that are behind this. Then I might actually have a day off so I can get some sleep."
"Alright girl," Warrick spoke, "just don't kill yourself over this, okay?"
Sara nodded and they both got back to work.
Catherine had grabbed another detective, and Robert was brought back into the interrogation room for questioning. "Robert, I need you to tell me everything that happened with Ecklie," Catherine spoke.
"Well, he started noticing that something was odd about me, and my employers thought that he was a threat to the total operation. One day the real Ecklie was there, and the next day, he was gone."
"When exactly did this happen?"
"About two weeks after I went in."
Catherine catalogued the date in her mind and continued to question him. "What was the first thing that happened after the imposter replaced Ecklie?"
"He split up the night shift."
"And you facilitated this?"
"I was just supposed to let him do what he was instructed to do. Those were my instructions."
"How about when he was raping and killing those women? Did you know that?"
"I already told Grissom that I didn't know. Neither did my employers."
"How about when Grissom kept going to you to ask about putting the teams back together? Where was the imposter then?"
"I don't know. That was the problem. The guy went missing, and I had to do something to cover."
"Right, and you helped a serial rapist and murderer in the process."
"I was not aware of that at the time."
Catherine changed the subject. "A few more questions for now. Were you aware that the sheriff's and Ecklie's bodies were in the basement of the sheriff's house?"
"No, I already told Grissom that too."
"Could your employers get into that house if they wanted to?"
"I assume so."
Catherine asked a few more questions before leaving the interrogation room and meeting Grissom and Brass at city hall.
Six hours later, Grissom and Catherine returned from city hall with DNA samples and fingerprints for all of the mayor's employees. His employees had been advised that it could help to clear them if further evidence arose. Catherine brought the DNA samples to Greg, while Grissom brought the fingerprints to the trace lab. "These are prints for all of the mayor's employees," Grissom spoke, "did you find any prints on those envelopes?"
"Yeah," Sara spoke, "Greg found a partial."
"Well, scan these in and see if you can find any matches," Grissom stated, moving to leave the room.
"Griss, can I talk to you for a minute?" Sara asked.
"Sara, can we talk later? I need to go talk to Dr. Robbins," Grissom stated, in a rush to leave.
Sara had wanted to tell him about her recent health problems, but she realized that it was important to find out who was behind the conspiracy. "Okay," Sara spoke, slightly disappointed.
"Page me if you find anything," Grissom spoke and left the room.
Sara looked at their new pile of fingerprints to run, and she turned to Warrick. "This should be fun," she said facetiously.
"Yeah, let's get started," Warrick stated.
The two of them began scanning all of the fingerprints into the computer.
After about ten minutes, Nick joined them in the trace lab. "I just brought some hairs over to Greg," Nick spoke, "he's swamped."
"So are we," Warrick spoke, "what do you have?"
"Prints from the outside of the coffin. There were quite a few that weren't damaged or compromised."
"Pull up a chair," Sara stated.
"Why thank you," Nick joked, joining the two of them to start processing the fingerprints he had collected.
"Sara, you feel okay?" Nick asked, noticing that she looked pale.
Sara groaned. "Nick, as I've told everyone else in this lab, I am just stressed out."
"You look green."
"That would be because I feel nauseous. Look, I don't know what gossip is going around, but I'm not pregnant, I wish everyone would drop it."
"Did I say anything to suggest you were pregnant? No. I'm concerned about your wellbeing. Does Griss know you don't feel so good?"
"He was just in here, and he didn't appear to think anything was wrong. Nick, we're busy, we need to figure this case out if we ever expect to get a good sleep again."
Although he didn't like it, Nick accepted Sara's answer, and they all got back to work.